When It Falls
by CreamoCrop
Summary: The four times Molly Hooper should have cried and the one time she did.


**When It Falls**

* * *

**1985**

Little Molly had always liked the train station, with the buzzing of people rushing around, the colorful clothes floating about and the large bags on wheels that sometimes zaps past her. She always liked it when her family pile into their small car to go to the train station whenever Mummy had to go and visit Nan for the weekends. Although she doesn't like it when Mum have to disappear for two days, she always knows that she would come back on Sunday evening, bearing gifts and delicious food made by Nan. Besides, those two days are adventurous days that she spend with her Daddy. Free from Mummy's cautious eyes, four year old Molly and her Daddy spend their weekends climbing the only tree in their backyard, sliding in the banister to his father's secure arms and playing _the-floor-is-lava _and other fun things that they wouldn't be able to do without the usual stern warning.

For her, jumping in their car to bring Mummy in the station and bid her farewell isn't really a sad occasion.

Mummy always comes back.

That is why she can't understand why everyone in the car is silent, why Daddy is not the one driving, why he is wearing a suit and she in a stuffy black dress and why her Mummy's not in the car. They told her they would be saying goodbye to her Mummy._ 'How are they going to do that if she's not here?'_ In fact, she hadn't been anywhere for four days now.

_'Was she in the train station already?' _

Molly pulled Mr. Ted closer to her. '_Yes, maybe that's where she is._' She leveled her gaze to look at the beady eyes of her stuffed toy.

_'For four days?_

When they stepped out in the car, the first thing that came into little Molly's mind was that she had never seen a station as silent as the one in front of them.

_'It's nice.'_

Nor had she ever seen one, with such a big cross perched on top.

_'It's sparkly.'_

It was different and it was beautiful and inside of it was her Mummy waiting to say goodbye.

Little Molly smiled.

For Mummy always comes back.

* * *

**That afternoon, she learned that it was going to be a different goodbye.**

* * *

**1992**

The other kids were always mean to her. She did try making friends and playing with them but because she was the smallest in class, no one wants to pick her to join their groups. During lunch breaks, while other children play around, she sits quietly in a bench to eat her food. However, her dormancy disappears when inside the classroom. She was the brightest in class, always ready to answer her teacher's questions and always helpful enough to assist her other classmates. The teachers always praise her and she always gets a perfect score. Perhaps that's why the others don't like her.

Or perhaps it was because she wasn't afraid to touch dead things.

More specifically, she wasn't afraid to touch Hal, the dead class hamster. When the class found Hal, inexplicably dead one Monday morning, Molly was the only one brave enough to pick him with her hands. She was the only one strong enough to walk out of the classroom and into the garden with a dead animal in between her palms. She was the only one steady enough to dig a small hole where the carcass was laid to rest. All the others stood in horror and discomfort as she arranged a small bouquet of flowers on top of the tiny plot.

She was the only one bullied because of that.

They'd taunt her and tease her and pull her pigtails while calling her _Molly the witch. _She couldn't understand what's wrong with what she did, everything dies after all.

Today, she found a dead bird in her chair and beside it, written on the shiny surface using a thick black marker, were the words: _Creepy Witchy Molly. _

Her classmates were getting harsher and a sigh escaped from her lungs as she thought about how she could remove the stain, but first...

Molly picked the lifeless bird and gently cupped it in between her hands. She knows of a perfect place to bury the bird. She thought of the little spot underneath the apple tree where the air is cool and always swirling.

At least the bird's wings weren't broken. It could still fly. _Somehow_.

At least one of them is free.

She smiled as she laid the bird to rest.

* * *

**Eventually she'll learn that death isn't always an escape.**

* * *

**2001**

Her Dad was doing that coin trick again.

She already knows the mechanism behind it, she had discovered it years ago while she was cleaning his table and she chanced upon the hidden coin. Nevertheless she still gives a wide smile as she watches him perform it as if he was Harry Houdini.

They were at their old house, the one with the single tree in the backyard, the one with the abused banister and the worn out furniture from careless and innocent days full of running and jumping around. The duo was sitting on the porch, him in his old rocking chair and her, beside him on the floor. For a moment she was transported back to another day, when the house still smelled of fresh paint and the floor boards are still silent. It was the day, when a little girl with plaited hair, first looked up to see a shiny coin vanish in front of her. The day Molly Hooper believed in magic.

That was sixteen years ago.

Now, the walls are tarnished and the floor is rickety, but her father's eyes still lit with the same hint of omniscience that had always put her in awe and his smile is shrouded with the same mystery that had convinced little Molly that he was indeed, a magician.

Molly's smile almost faltered as she eyed the stubby fingers that held the same agility and quickness despite the crinkles and slight tremor that had settled in his bones. She remembered watching those fingers with laser focus in the hopes of catching the precise moment when the coin disappears. She could remember how closely she looked at the coin as it pass through each gap between his fingers and how it flipped from heads to tails and back again as it pass from his thumb to his pointer finger before moving on to settle in between his middle and ring finger. He'd continue flipping it until his other hand smoothly pass through, leaving in its wake, a coin less palm and a wide-eyed girl.

As she sit in the very same spot where the magic first happened, she could almost hear the whiny voice begging to be let in on the secret.

_"Please Daddy! Tell me how it works!"_

His laugh always boomed from his belly. "_A magician never tells his secret my little Molly!"_

_..._

_..._

"Do you want to know how it works Molly?"

The coin has vanished again and he was looking at her with a serene face that almost drove her to tears.

"I thought magicians aren't allowed to tell their secret."

He broke into a laugh but it lacked the energy that it had before.

"I think it's time to pass it on."

He reached out to open his hand where the coin is gently nestled in the center.

With a soft smile and a gentle shake of the head, she reached up to cup his hand and gently close it.

"I know the secret already Dad."

The declaration was met with only a mild surprise.

"Well, I suppose your old enough to figure it out."

She had never heard him like this, his voice was smaller but calm. With a gentle tug, she brought their clasped hand and laid a small kiss on top of his rough palm.

"Yes..."

Later on, as she stands in front of a closed casket, with the coin digging in her closed fist, she'd smile as if he's there, listening to an unfinished statement.

"It's called magic, Dad."

* * *

**She never stopped believing.**

* * *

**2012**

The man she loves is dead.

The man she loves is dead...and is probably halfway around the world right now.

The brilliant Sherlock Holmes has jumped down St Bart's rooftop and Molly Hooper killed him.

Molly Hooper killed the man she loves.

All those years, of standing by his side, helping him in as many ways as she can, skirting in the edges of his existence hoping even for the briefest acknowledgement, all of them boiled down to this day.

The day Molly Hooper buries Sherlock Holmes.

She needs to cry.

Mrs. Hudson is standing beside her, more accurately, leaning beside her with a waterfall of tears flowing down her eyes. Lestrade is on the other side and she almost shivered at the icy aura that he's giving off. Beside him, Mycroft Holmes is echoing the posture of a stone statue. All of them are grieving in their own ways. Each of them are dealing with Sherlock's death in the easiest way they can.

Cry.

Hate.

Be indifferent.

All of them, except for the man standing on the farthest end of this human line. She hazarded a glance towards John and she almost, _almost _confessed to him right there and then. She could see how far off he was, as if he wasn't even there. She is looking at the hallow shell of a man who still believes.

John Watson still believes in Sherlock Holmes.

_All of them _still believes in Sherlock Holmes...

...and all of them thought he is dead.

As she stands, squeezed in the middle, she can't help but feel a little bitterness to Sherlock. He had bestowed her with one great secret that is now making her hate herself. Sherlock has given her a gift, one that she had been trying to earn for a long time, his trust, but inside it, is a well-concealed curse. It was unintentional, but painful nevertheless. She is, after all, very acquainted with the nature of losing loved ones. Now she is watching helplessly as the others go through it. Nevertheless, she consoles her self with the knowledge that after grieving, comes acceptance and with it, is _moving on._

Her heart clenched. Soon, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes and hopefully, John, will move on. The rest of the world will move on.

She won't.

She can't.

Sherlock Holmes has done it again. He's dead already, but he's still making her wait for him.

She wants to cry.

Internally, she smiled though. At least he's alive.

* * *

**She was in limbo. She can't be fully happy nor sad.**

* * *

**2015**

Three years, it took him three years to come back.

Sherlock Holmes was back from the dead and he was welcomed with a slap from Mrs. Hudson, a punch in the left cheek from Lestrade and one in the right from John. Nevertheless he was back and he had become a greater man than he was when he left. Mostly because he has redeemed himself from being a fraud to an actual genius who faked his death and got rid of an evil network before coming back to life.

At least that's what the media is purporting.

To the others who knew him personally, he was just being the usual Sherlock Holmes with all his complexity and flashiness.

To Molly, Sherlock Holmes returned a greater man because his resurrection signaled the end of her misery.

For three years, she bore the weight of knowing he was alive. That he was somewhere, tracking down criminals while his friends in London take turns visiting his headstone. For thirty six months, she wakes up in the morning wondering if he was still alive or if he was actually, _truly _dead. For one thousand and ninety-six days she goes to sleep wondering if she should continue waiting.

She waited.

He appeared.

She was at the laboratory when the heavy steel doors opened and somehow, even without looking up, she knew who had just entered. He stood in front of her, wearing the same billowy coat, the same blue scarf and sporting the same curly hair. She sat on her chair, clip board at hand, wearing the same lab coat, using the same scrunchie for her hair and staring at him with the same deep set eyes that once saw how sad he was. At that moment, it was as if the past three years didn't happen. When he drew his breath and told her he needs to use the lab for an experiment, it was as if he never disappeared at all. When she smiled and rose to fetch his cultures, it was as if she never waited for him.

There were no greetings exchanged, no questions asked and no explanations given. They just moved within the lab and around each other, in the same dance that they had been doing before the disastrous event they call suicide.

It was so easy to fall back into their pattern.

Eventually, all observations had been made, all steps conducted, all inquiries were answered. The conclusion of the experiment had been reached and the dance was coming to a close. As he rose to wear his scarf and his coat, Molly went on to clean his station thinking of how everything is already in place.

_'Everything is back.'_

She was very occupied she didn't realize there was a towering figure in front of her.

When she looked up she was met with the penetrating stare of two silvery azure eyes. For the first time, she is seeing the differences: the darker bags crowding his eyes, the more prominent cheekbone made by a gaunter face, and the faint traces of a scar just below his hairline.

This is not her Sherlock Holmes.

She wonders briefly if she was still his Molly Hooper.

Not that she ever become his, or him hers.

As she responded with an equally grave stare, she realized that they had both experienced things that may have irreversibly changed them.

_'Maybe, somethings aren't back in place after all.'_

_..._

_..._

"I'm back...Molly."

...

...

"Welcome home, Sherlock."

...

...

* * *

When the door was finally closed and the retreating steps were finally silent, that was the only time that the tears came.

Each drop freely flowed for all the times that they were ignored or restricted.

Beads of tears swept through the contours of her face as she thought of all the goodbyes she had to say.

Droplets splattered into her folded hands as she thought of the countless times she wanted to escape, to just leave everything behind and be free.

A hiccup jolted through her body as she thought of how much she believed. Too much, perhaps.

She cried as she thought of how she was finally free from _the burden _of knowing.

* * *

Molly Hooper cried as she thought of how she was back into waiting for Sherlock...

_...again._

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm supposed to be writing something else, not this stuff! My frustration turns into angsty fics...so I hope you enjoyed this (wait, that's kind of ironic...)**


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